Welcome to the New Chamber Opera Studio Recital Series which is held on Fridays at 1.15 pm during term time in New College Ante-Chapel. The recital series has been running since 1994 and offers singers across the University and beyond the opportunity to perform a short programme in a relaxed atmosphere.
We are pleased to announce that New College is once again open, and that the recital series is back in person.
Week 2 22 October Theo Nesbitt Week 3 29 October Colin Danskin Week 4 5 November Maryam Wocial Week 5 12 November Austin Haynes Week 6 19 November Sternberg Consort Week 7 26 November Melissa Talbot Week 8 3 December Matt Pope
Welcome to the New Chamber Opera Studio Recital Series which is held on Fridays at 1.15 pm during term time in New College Ante-Chapel. The recital series has been running since 1994 and offers singers across the University and beyond the opportunity to perform a short programme in a relaxed atmosphere.
Sadly, the College is currently closed to all visitors. To join the weekly recitals by livestream, please click on the links provided below. The recordings will be available until 30 June 2021.
Week 1 30 April Theo Nesbittwith Dónal McCann Week 2 7 May Maryam Wocial with Toby Stanford Week 3 14 May John Johnstonwith Dónal McCann Week 4 21 May Karol Jozwikwith Jamie Andrews Week 5 28 May Emily Mustoewith Matthew Foster Week 6 4 June Filippo Turkheimerwith Helen Chua Week 7 11 June (Performance Postponed) Will Priorwith Will Harmer Week 8 18 June Elizabeth Vineallwith Toby Stanford
Welcome to the New Chamber Opera Studio Friday Recital Series. The recital series has been running since 1994 and offers singers across the University and beyond the opportunity to perform a short programme in a relaxed atmosphere.
Sadly, the College is currently closed to all visitors, and non-New College members are not able to attend the recitals.
* Please print off your ticket and bring it with you. Please do the same with the programme and biography; these will not be available at the venue.
A Coffin – Last Things by Alasdair Nicolson, with a text by Craig Raine, is a meditation at the bedside of a dying woman. (Performance deferred)
A Confession – The Organist’s Confession by Luke Smith, with a text by Michael Burden,is a study of an organist with dementia.
A Cautionary Tale – The Evils of Tobacco by Samuel Hogarth, with a text after Chekhov, is a humorous didactic on smoking.
Last Things– Karol Jozwik, countertenor The Evils of Tobacco – Austin Haynes, countertenor The Organist’s Confession – Lindsay Bramley, mezzo-soprano Premiere
The mythological narrative of Acis and Galatea was a subject of continual fascination for Handel. Extant sources attest to at least three distinct renditions, including the contemporary favourite, Acis and Galatea, which had its London premiere in 1718. A consequence of the lasting popularity of the London version is that Handel’s other settings have been consigned to obscurity. New Chamber Opera attempts to correct this imbalance. For one night only, we will give a concert performance of his 1708 setting, Aci, Galatea, e Polifemo, in the tranquil environs of the chapel of New College. Aci brims with the confidence of a composer cognisant of his capabilities and displays a range of operatic devices that became central to the Handel’s mature operatic style: bravura arias are interspersed with cantabile reflections; doleful continuo-accompanied numbers are contrasted with full-textured, magisterial entries and exits; and textural choice becomes as much a signifier of affect as musical content. Handel evidently realised his precocity, choosing to use it for concert performance in 1732.
Aci,
Galatea, e Polifemo offers a unique setting of the
familiar Acis narrative – one that certainly deserves both performative and critical
attention.
Domenico Cimarosa, Le astuzie femminili (Feminine Shrewdness) 1794
29 June (Preview), 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 July 2022.
Feminine Shrewdness (performed in English) is the perfect opera for summer; a lighted-hearted look at the difficulties created for the orphan Bellina and her guardian the fraudulent lawyer Don Romualdo, by Bellina’s father’s impossible will; this provides her with a large dowry, but only if she should marry the crude and cowardly Don Giampaolo Lasagna. All the action flows from attempts to rescue Bellina from her cruel fate and includes two characters who disguise themselves as Hussars, while wildly speaking broken German.
As always, we are looking forward to welcoming you to the Summer Opera. However, please note that due to the changing COVID19 situation, the organisation and management of the event and venues are subject to change.
Timings: 6.00pm Drinks 6.30pm Act I 8.00pm Picnic Interval 9.15pm Act II 10.30pm Curtain down
Performances will be dedicated as follows:
29 June (Preview) New Chamber Opera TicketSource booking has now closed.
2 July New College Development Office Please note that a photographer will be present on this evening.
3 July Oxford Friends of Welsh National Opera Enquiries to Bernadette Whittington 07813 907466
5 July New Chamber Opera TicketSource booking has now closed.
6 July Friends of the Oxford Botanic Gardens Enquiries to Freyja Jones 07472 365001 or email: [email protected]
8 July New College Development Office
Conductor – Steven Devine Director – Michael Burden
Anyone who is not on the NCO electronic mailing list and who would like to be updated on the Summer Opera, should email [email protected]
Cast in Order of Appearance
Dr Romualdo – Dominic Bowe A Neapolitan apothecary, pretended lawyer, and guardian of Bellina with whom he is in love; he also casts his eye on Ersilia
Ersilia – Gwendolen Martin Friend and confidante of Bellina
Filandro – Rory Carver A young man secretly in love with Bellina
Bellina – Emily Brown Gibson Ward of Dr Romualdo and secretly in love with Filandro
Giampaolo – Daniel Tate A Neapolitan apothecary, betrothed to Bellina by her father’s will
Leonora – Kate Semmens One time governess to Dr Romualdo
The only opera in history to have been entirely encored at its first performance, The Secret Marriage (Il matrimonio segreto) tells the story of Carolina, secretly married to her father’s secretary Paulino. Her father is trying to marry Carolina’s sister, Elisetta, to one Count Robinson, but his plans have been derailed; the Count only wants to marry Carolina. Meanwhile, Carolina’s and Elisetta’s Aunt Fidalma has fallen in love with Paulino, providing yet another complication… the libretto, by Bertati, is based on an English comedy by George Coleman, and set by Cimarosa, one of the most prolific and capable opera composers of the late 18th century. It was first staged on 7 February 1792.
Conductor: Joseph Beesley Assistant conductor: Toby Stanford Director: Michael Burden
Carolina: Margaret Lingas Elisetta: Emily Brown Gibson Fidalma: Stephanie Franklin Paulino: Richard Douglas Count Robinson: Tom McGowan Geronimo: Chris Murphy
“Brashness and grace vie side-by-side for one evening as New Chamber Opera interpret two pillars of the High Baroque”
J.S. Bach’s virtuosic cantata for solo voice and harpsichord, ‘Amore Traditore’, and Louis Couperin’s magnificent ‘Lecons de Tenebres’ are seemingly at opposite ends of the affective spectrum. Bach’s zany cantata, consisting of 3 explosive movements of musical vitriol against the treachery of love, contrasts deeply with Couperin’s noble lament to a lost Jerusalem. But these two chamber works participate in a tradition of what can be termed as ‘intimate virtuosity’. Both the ‘Lecons’and ‘Amore Traditore’ are scored simply – for continuo and voice – removing the powerful, connotative force of the orchestra in favour of an intimate grandeur that only continuo harpsichord and its bowed and plucked associates can evoke. The two compositions can be seen as affective complements offering two stunningly different conceptions of intimate lamentation.
The Summer Opera 3 (Preview)/6/9/10/12/13 July 2019
Conductor – Steven Devine; Director – Michael Burden
In a new English translation by Simon Rees
Cast Amarilli – Barbara Cole Walton Dorida – Indyana Schneider Eurilla – Gwendolen Martin Mirtillo – Kate Semmens Silvio – Mark Chambers Trieno – Patrick Keefe
The Evening’s Events 6.00pm: Drink in the Cloisters 6.30pm: Opera Part I, The Warden’s Garden Picnic Interval in the Cloisters (approximately 90 minutes) 9.00pm: Opera Part II, The Warden’s Garden 10.00pm: Curtain
Amarilli, a shepherdess, in love with Mirtillo Dorinda, a shepherdess, in love with Silvio Eurilla, a shepherdess, in love with Mirtillo Mirtillo, a shepherd, in love with Amarilli
Silvio, a hunter, in love with hunting, and eventually, with Dorinda
Tirenio, a High Priest of Diana
Set in Arcadia, the background to the plot of Handel’s pastoral opera Il pastor fido is that Diana, virgin huntress goddess, has become displeased
with Arcadia and has let it be known that only through the marriage of a couple
descended from heavenly ancestors, one of whom will be ‘a faithful shepherd,’
will her wrath be appeased; Silvio and Amarilli are designated the ‘happy
couple,’ to everyone’s consternation. The three shepherdesses spend the
opera pursuing the objects of their desire. Amarilli is in love with Mirtillo
(who loves her in return) but is destined for Silvio. Eurilla is also in love
with Mirtillo (who does not return her love), and tries to undermine Amarilli.
Dorinda in is love with Silvio (who does not return her love until he almost
kills her with a spear while hunting).
The first Eurilla, Margherita de l’Épine
The opera was Handel’s second one for London; the first, Rinaldo, had been a brilliant success,
and the audience was taken aback at this short and understated work. It
achieved only a few performances, but it was twice revived in 1734 first with
added choruses, and then with added dances, it was more popular, achieving a
total of some 14 performances. The two versions represent two phases of
Handel’s opera career; the first, his early years in the capital when both he
and Italian opera were still finding their feet in the city, and the second,
his years as an opera promoter, when he faced competition from the Opera of the
Nobility, competition which ultimately damaged the staging of Italian opera in
London. Il pastor fido has been
performed in modern times on numerous occasions, with the 1734 version first
performed in 1948 at Göttingen, and the 1712 version in 1971 in Unicorn
Theatre, Abingdon.
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New Chamber Opera
